Beast Hunter

Chapter Twenty-One

The Sasquatch opened its eyes.

Sat up.

And howled loud enough to stop hearts. Its anger was so intense that everyone instinctively backed off, even Slater. A moment later it was on its feet, waving its arms and shouting like a demon.

I can't say that I've ever witnessed a being in the throngs of bloodlust before, but I would have bet my non-existent allowance that the creature was experiencing just that. Which sucked because the six of us were the only ones within striking distance that had blood to lust after.

Slater and his cronies raised their guns.

I thought for a moment they were going to shoot the Sasquatch dead. But a spilt second later, I realized that they weren't aiming at the jacked-up Bigfoot. They were aiming at something else.

The wind suddenly picked up.

But it wasn't a normal wind. It felt like the air whooshing past us, as if it was being pulled in by something. Then I saw it. Hanging in the air just beyond the Sasquatch was a large vertical slit about three feet long. It didn't move much, other than a slight shimmering as the air around us continued to flow into it.

Was this the veil that Slater had spoken of?

It seemed to distract the Sasquatch who ceased its ranting and watched it with a sort of recognition in its eyes. I'd gotten the sense that the creature had seen something similar to it before, though not for a very long time.

Just then, the slit grew bigger. Five feet long. Six. Seven. On and on it grew until it stretched at least twelve feet from top to bottom. Like a zipper, it started to open from the top down. The opening was faint at first, like a crack in plaster, but the light that spilled out from the other side was unmistakable. It was daylight. Though it was still in the middle of the night where we were, on the other side it was daytime, and the sunlight of that world now reached into ours. I tried to peer into the crack, but I couldn't make out any details from the world beyond. The new light clashed too much with our dark night, and all I could see was a white blur.

That is, until the first tentacle appeared.

I don't know any other way to describe it.

It was about the size of a firehose, grey and smooth with a tapered end that looked like the head of an earthworm.

Slater squealed like an over-excited schoolgirl.

I looked toward him and could see that he was practically glowing with giddiness.

Another tentacle reached out from the rift. Then another. And another.

"Yes!" Slater exclaimed as if he'd just won the lottery. "Watt's location does lead to its lair. Just like I always thought it would. It makes perfect sense. That's why there's so much energy here. I was right. I was right!"

"What are you talking about?" Stu asked. "What lair? What is this?"

"This veil-site has the highest energy vibration of any other on our world," Slater exclaimed. "I've always theorized that it's because it leads to the lair of that world's most powerful being. And I was right. The Greeks called it the Kraken. Scripture called it Leviathan. A creature of both sea and land. A species that no man has ever slayed. The deadliest game anyone has ever faced. The ultimate trophy!"

The veil opened wider as more tentacles came through, waving and flailing like a pack of spasmodic anacondas.

One of them wrapped itself around the Sasquatch's waist and raised it off the ground. The Sasquatch – no longer mesmerized by the sudden appearance of the doorway to its version of Earth – resumed its adrenaline-fueled frenzy, howling and beating at the wiggling appendage that held it tightly and wouldn't let go.

"No!" I shouted, sickened by the sight of it.

I'd come to think of the Sasquatch as an ally. It had tried to protect me from Slater back in the woods and showed me genuine gratitude when I took the tranquilizer darts out of its hide. We'd spent this whole ordeal trying to keep each other safe, and now that it was in the clutches of what looked to be an honest-to-goodness monster from the netherworld, I was terrified.

But that was nothing compared to what came next.

From the center of the veil, a figure started to emerge. At first, it just looked like a large, massive blob as it squeezed its gooey, writhing mass through the opening. A moment later, it came within full view as it presented itself smack-dab in the center of Watt's stage.

Sky screamed.

Stu gasped.

I nearly fainted.

Standing before us, tentacles writhing, was the Kraken.

Forget what you've seen in movies. Release the Kraken, and all that. This thing looked nothing like that. I'd never seen anything like it before. There was no precedent for this in any lore I'd ever come across. No movie. No artist rendering. Nothing. Not so much as a cave painting or an ancient woodcut had ever come close to depicting the nightmare in front of us now.

Its body was mostly one big mass in the shape of a ball. No head. No shoulders or arms. Its body was its head. The tentacles were its arms. In the center of the mass was a giant, gaping eye, the single pupil darting up and down, side to side, taking us all in with the same kind of shock and disbelief that I'm sure we all felt. Below the eye was a large mouth. And I mean large, with teeth the size of daggers. It didn't have legs but rather a pair of big floppy feet that it used to kind of shuffle and amble around with.

For a moment, everything, even the flapping tentacles and the angry Sasquatch, remained still while we all soaked in this moment of first contact between residents of two separate worlds.

Then...

"Open fire!" Slater shouted.

All three of their guns went off. As I'd expected, the tranqs had been exchanged for real hardware, the shots popping off one after the other in tight, explosive bursts. I'm no gun expert but judging from the size of the rifles, the booming loudness of the shots, and corresponding impacts each round made, this was heavy-duty hardware they were using.

The Kraken winced and moved its ugly body slightly to the side with each round that hit its hide, sort of like you would do if someone was splashing cold water in your face.

After a steady volley that lasted several tense seconds, Slater and his cronies stopped firing. I assumed that they had spent their payloads and were now pausing to assess the damage they'd inflicted.

The verdict was not good.

Right away, it was obvious to me that their shots had done little to no damage.

The creature's grey skin was rubbery and tough. The membrane that made up its one large eye was equally thick and near impenetrable. It looked like maybe a couple of shots had scratched the surface of the eye's lens in a few spaces. But that was it.

In that moment, the truth became painfully clear.

The guns they'd counted on to bag their ultimate trophy were useless against this thing.

I looked toward Slater, who – for the first time since the one-eyed-monster first showed up – betrayed his tough exterior for an expression of worry.

The Kraken looked toward him, opened its grotesque mouth, and shrieked a howl of anger that could curdle blood.

And then it attacked.